Read Online Kissing the Countess by Susan King - Free Book Online Page B

life, but she knew without doubt that he was saving hers. His caring, tender touch and his deep kisses were rescuing her from the oblivion of loneliness to which she had long been consigned.
    Just once, she would follow will and desire and discover what love felt like. Just once, and then he would be gone from her life. For now, she wanted to let him fill her with more of his fire. In seeking bodily warmth, she had unleashed a feverish power and deep need within her.
    I need you, she wanted to say. As he kissed her again, she shuddered with pleasure. And I've needed this so much.
    Whatever the price would be, she would gladly pay it. Will and desire drove her onward, compelled her.
    Evan drew back a little, touched her hair with his hand, a sweet caress. "Warmer now?" he whispered.
    "Some," she breathed, nudging toward him for another kiss.
    "Your toes still feel cold," he whispered, as his feet caressed hers. She slid her fingers over his jaw, through the thick gloss of his hair. "So do your hands. Here."
    He opened the buttons of his vest and his shirt, baring his chest. Slipping his hands under the jacket and around her waist, he pulled her close, nearly skin to skin, with only her thin chemise between them. Her belly fluttered, her breasts tingled. A bliss of searing warmth radiated from him.
    Angling her face to his, she waited, and a moment later he kissed her again, tender and exquisite, so that she opened her mouth to his and sighed. To feel so safe, so comforted, so loved, even if only for a brief time in her life, was the most wonderful feeling she had ever known.
    His hand at her waist smoothed over her lower back and her hip, then slid along her outer thigh. Moving upward again, his fingers grazed along her rib cage, shaping her there, his thumb grazing the side of her breast. She closed her eyes, allowing him to explore her curves and hollows, touch her however he pleased, for his caresses stoked a deep fire within her.
    As his fingers moved again, she sucked in her breath, for he contoured his palm over her breast, and his fingertips roused her tightening nipple. She gasped then, for he lowered his head and his mouth traced over her collarbones and lower still, until his breath heated her breasts through the cloth of her chemise.
    Arching toward him, she felt his hand nudge aside the cloth of her chemise. Quick and sure, his hand settled over her bare breast, his touch delicate at first, then firmer, until she moaned out, fearing she might dissolve from the sheer pleasure of it.
    She slid her own fingers over his bared chest, kneading warm skin dusted with springy hair, her palm following the planes of hard muscle. Pressing herself against his hips, she felt him harden against her, and she moved a little, trying to ease the growing, demanding ache deep inside of her. He shifted his head and took her mouth again, his kiss deep and strong, his fingers kneading her breasts, her nipples, so that a sort of lightning struck through her.
    Desire came fully alive within her then, beating its wings against the cage of her body, struggling to burst free. Writhing, crying out softly, she silently asked for more.
    He moved his hand downward, over the bunched chemise, until he found her thigh and tucked under the damp hem of the cloth. She waited breathlessly, her belly fluttering. As his fingers eased over the apex of her thighs, then gently slipped into the hidden cleft, she gasped again.
    At first his touch astonished her, and then her body flooded with luscious, white-hot fire. With soft cries, she rode his touch, rocked with it, felt as if she turned molten. Suddenly she felt herself climbing, then reaching a blissful peak that she had not even known was there, like a burst of light in darkness.
    Mind and reason no longer held sway as a magnificent inferno built in her and the craving grew with it, until she could not bear it. Pleading with her body, with her hands and her mouth, she wanted to feel him deep within her,